


His name, a refrain, repeated back in some other way.

by penaltyboxed



Series: The belief in love, and in being married to our work [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Canon Compliant, Complicated Relationships, Detroit Red Wings, Devotion, Established Relationship, Evil russian twinks that small your stevies, Exhibitionism, Explicit Sexual Content, Language Barrier, Love Languages, M/M, Mutual Pining, Secret Relationship, Service Kink, Size Kink, Slow Burn, Summer Offseason, Undeniably unsafe sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 13:37:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22913182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penaltyboxed/pseuds/penaltyboxed
Summary: Sergei stood in Steve’s foyer like a bizarre creature, like he didn’t know how to carry himself. Steve stepped forward and motioned at the duffle bag. Sergei’s entire life was probably shoved into that thing.“Can I?”Sergei blinked, processed the question, and then nodded. Steve gently lifted the bag’s strap as Sergei shrugged it off gracefully.The to-be-married thing had been what Steve was worried about, moreso than anything else. They were strangers, but Steve was raised to take care of people when he could. And it’s just-- he didn’t know where the line was drawn with Sergei; everything he did felt like it had to be methodical and purposeful now. There was bound to be some kind of awkward intimacy with this situation, but he genuinely didn’t want to make Sergei uncomfortable.He just wanted to play hockey with Sergei on his wing. He wanted to hoist the Stanley Cup over his head for everyone in the world to see. Being Sergei’s green card was just the easiest way to make that happen.
Relationships: Sergei Fedorov/Steve Yzerman
Series: The belief in love, and in being married to our work [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742086
Comments: 32
Kudos: 176





	His name, a refrain, repeated back in some other way.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so I got really into the 1990s drw narrative to cope with Andreas being traded to fucking Edmonton for more draft picks. A lot of details are based directly from factual irl happenings, from Keith Gave's book about the Russian Five (Sergei's chapters especially) and from direct interviews, but also like, obviously most of this is fictional lol. this did NOT get edited properly and I refuse to read over it one more time lest I go insane. I said what I said and if anything is spelled wrong then no it isn't <3
> 
> The only crucial thing I'll ask for is to suspend your disbelief a little in terms of period typical homophobia/the logic/the legality of it all. if I wanted to write depressing, factual, realistic things about hockey I'd be a grown man on twitter with a pittsburgh icon.

Business meetings were annoying, but Steve bore them with incredible grace, as he figured a Captain probably should. However, it was kind of fucked up that Jim Devellano was basically asking Steve for a meeting while he was at the gym in the middle of a workout. It just seemed like seeking Steve out while he was on an exercise bike was a little unprofessional. 

Devellano stood with a hand on his hip, looking very important and out of place amongst the weights and machines in the gym. He clicked a pen aggressively in his other hand.

“So, what did you think of the Soviet kid we got on our list?” He had asked. Steve’s legs worked the pedals of the bike quickly and he pulled up the name without a pause.

“Sergei Fedorov? Oh, he’s real good.” 

“But how does he compare to you?” Nosy management were at it again, it seemed. Steve had been playing hockey, not watching for a scouting report at the World Championships. Ridiculous. 

“He’s better than me.” That’s all Steve really knew, anyways. The truth, which was that the kid skated like he was born to do it. It had impressed Steve. 

There had been something kind of frightening and magical about the way Fedorov’s feet moved on the ice. He had a set of pretty impressive hands, as well. The Soviets had taken gold from Canada at Worlds, but they had deserved it. Steve remembered not smiling when they placed silver around his neck. At the same time though, he had dipped his head low out of respect when he caught Fedorov’s eye. He had been wearing the gold on his chest proudly, and Steve was happy for him and his team. Worlds was a big deal. Fedorov had nodded back to Steve from across the ice. Then Steve left. That was it.

Devellano’s face hitched, “Say that again.”

It was hard to shrug while he was still pedaling, faster now but, “He’s better than me.”

“Stephen, come on. You’re just being nice, aren’t you?” 

“No, no. He’s bigger and a stronger skater. He’s better than me.” Steve didn’t mince words. Nor did he sprinkle his comments with cliches and false praise. He was a better man than that. Devellano just smiled. 

“That’s all I needed to hear. Thanks, Stevie.” 

Steve leaned forward on the bike and rested his forearms against the handles and the little center-screen. Sweat was dripping into his eyes and it stung. “No problem, Jim.”  


* * *

  
Steve had a call from Bryan Murray to tell him there was gonna be a meeting with Mike Ilitch and Jim Lites and that Steve had to be there. So not… stressful, exactly, considering it was the middle of summer with the next season still months out, but it did raise Steve’s red flags a bit that there was going to be a nice casual chat with the head coach and the man who owned the team and the front office executive and they wanted the Captain of the team to be there for it. 

Plus, and Steve would never say this out loud, but directly interacting with Mr. Ilitch kind of intimidated him. The man could probably destroy Steve’s life and career if he ever got bored enough, and he had more money than Steve could legitimately comprehend. It was a scary business.

Steve arrived at the meeting twenty minutes early, and he still had been the last one in the door. Mr. Ilitch stared him down briefly before smiling and gesturing for Steve to take a seat. 

“This is about Sergei Fedorov.” Mr. Ilitch explained. Steve had figured as much.

“Okay.”

“We’re gonna help this kid defect. And this is off-record, Stevie, just a brainstorm.” Jim explained.

“A brainstorm to get him to defect from Russia?”

“I want him on my team.” Mr. Ilitch said with a serene severity. If he wanted it, so would it be. It was up to the rest of the assholes in this franchise to make it happen, Steve included.

“We need to find a way to make it look realistic, and to find a place for him to stay for the summer before the Soviets try to steal him back. Work visa probably isn’t gonna cut it. He’s one of their stars and we’re gonna have to drag him here covered in claw marks.” Bryan explained. 

“Okay.” Steve felt weird about why he needed to be here. He asked, “Any big ideas, yet?” 

Mr. Ilitch just waved his hand through the air lightly. Jim spoke: “We thought getting him a girlfriend over here would be good, but that was gonna take too long to play it off. So we thought maybe our genius Captain might have a fix.” 

Steve’s brow furrowed. He dealt with their eyes on him patiently while he sped his way through some ideas. Well, one idea, actually.

“... How about a boyfriend instead?” 

The equal rights movement had been a big fucking deal in the last few decades, a lot of debating and public protesting, but things had settled into a pace of relative acceptance around the country, especially after marriage laws had been passed a few years ago. But, of course, not everyone was so accepting, but that was just life.

“I would do it.” 

Mr. Ilitch’s face got stern, and the back of Steve’s neck went hot. Ashamed, a bit, so he quickly tacked on, “I mean. Not for real.”

“Stephen--” 

“Can I explain?” Steve shifted forward in his seat, sat with his spine straight. Mr. Ilitch nodded once.

“I’ve seen this kid skate. I know he’ll be dangerous in Detroit. I want him in Detroit, too. If we don’t want him deported then let’s get him a green card. My citizenship’s been settled for a while, so it can’t be that nuanced. We’ve got the best lawyers, right? I’ll marry him, give him a place to stay, we’ll keep it quiet, speed through the green card process, and we’ll win a cup.”

Murray’s face would have been hilarious, if Steve hadn’t just verbally admitted his devotion to and stupid optimism about this team in the most ridiculous way possible. Detroit hadn’t won in a long time. Steve was going to change that. 

“People get married just for citizenship all the time.” He added on for good measure. He had no clue if people actually got secretly married or if that was just a trope. 

The marriages were secret for a _reason_. 

Mr. Ilitch stewed on it, spun a pen gracefully around in his long fingers a few times, and then nodded. He wasn’t happy about it, obviously, but Steve could finally exhale. 

“It’s already going to be an international drama,” Mr. Ilitch said, finally, “we may as well add a little romance to go with the espionage. Maybe you’ll get a movie someday.”

Steve sat there for another half hour, going over more logistical what-ifs to prep for, and which lawyers to talk to, and he had been sweating the entire time. 

By the time he got to leave, it felt like he had played a full sixty minutes and his heart wouldn’t slow down. Murray clapped him on the back, laughed, and asked who Steve wanted to play him when Hollywood got a hold of this story.  


* * *

  
Jim had called as soon as their plane landed, about an hour ago, just to be sure Steve was awake enough to answer his front door. 

“Might wanna get decent. Just touched down, Steve, we’ll be at your place soon.” Jim’s voice had been scratchy through the phone line. 

Steve nodded into the air, where no one could see him, and scrubbed a hand over his face before he hung up. He had always been an early riser by nature, but 2:48 in the morning felt a little unfair. And in twenty minutes when Steve was going to unlock his front door to reveal a delighted, tired Jim Lites and the skinny, exhausted Russian behind him, well... it was only going to feel more unfair. He just knew it. 

Jim stepped aside, tried to usher Sergei inside of Steve’s home first, but no one moved. The top of Jim’s head was basically in line with Sergei’s shoulders, and Steve struggled to remember if he had been this tall at Worlds, if he had even seen Sergei without his gear during Worlds. He had to crane his neck to look up at Sergei’s face, who in turn, had tucked his chin down slightly to get a good look at Steve. Sergei was in a slightly crumpled grey suit with the jacket folded over one arm. His tie was nowhere to be seen. A heavy-looking duffle bag was slung over his opposite shoulder. The light from the front porch outside outlined the sharp edges and dark circles on his face with soft orange lines. With Sergei’s eyes on him, he became incredibly aware that he was just in his pyjamas, old grey sweatpants and a shirt with the winged wheel on the front of it. The ends of the feathers were just over his heart. His hair probably looked like shit.

It was a mutual cross-examination, at least. “Stevie, this is Sergei. He’s here but he’s not here. Sergei, this is Stevie Yzerman, the team’s Captain.” 

Steve stuck out a hand, palm tilted up, watched as Sergei blinked in surprise, and then took Steve’s hand firmly. They shook.

A quiet _hello_ warbled out of Sergei’s throat, heavily accented and obviously tired. Something jumped around in Steve’s chest. He kept his face posed carefully. 

“Morning, Sergei,” Steve said. “Exciting flight?”

Sergei’s eyebrows pulled together, just a little bit, like he didn’t understand. 

“His English isn’t great, not a huge vocabulary yet.” Jim offered up as an explanation. Sergei still had a hand grasped around Steve’s, but began looking between Jim and Steve like he knew they were talking about him but not what they were saying. 

Poor guy. Steve let go first and cleared his throat. 

“We may have an international incident brewing, so keep your heads down for a bit. Pick up the phone though. Mike thinks we’ll get his paperwork issues wrapped up in a few days and get you two to a courthouse by Friday. Saturday, at the latest.” Jim relayed. Steve was thankful for the plan, however vague it was. 

Jim left pretty promptly after saying good night to them both. He wanted to get home and snag some sleep for himself before the shit really hit the fan, so he claimed. 

Sergei stood in Steve’s foyer like a bizarre creature, like he didn’t know how to carry himself. Steve stepped forward and motioned at the duffle bag. Sergei’s entire life was probably shoved into that thing.

“Can I?” 

Sergei blinked, processed the question, and then nodded. Steve gently lifted the bag’s strap as Sergei shrugged it off gracefully. 

The to-be-married thing had been what Steve was worried about, moreso than anything else. They were strangers, but Steve was raised to take care of people when he could. And it’s just-- he didn’t know where the line was drawn with Sergei; everything he did felt like it had to be methodical and purposeful now. There was bound to be some kind of awkward intimacy with this situation, but he genuinely didn’t want to make Sergei uncomfortable. 

He just wanted to play hockey with Sergei on his wing. He wanted to hoist the Stanley Cup over his head for everyone in the world to see. Being Sergei’s green card was just the easiest way to make that happen.

Steve led him up to the guest room he tidied up earlier, carrying Sergei’s bag for him. Sergei stuck close behind, not wanting to get lost in the big house, Steve assumed. 

“You can stay in here,” Steve was careful to speak slowly and clearly when he set the bag down. “There’s a bathroom there, and a closet there.” 

Sergei nodded slowly, eyes trailing over the room, taking it in for himself as if it was something much more impressive than the spare bedroom down the hallway. Steve could tell he was tired. He would be, too, if he had gone through half of everything this kid had been dealing with. 

Well, maybe ‘kid’ was unfair. He was only a couple of years younger than Steve, and had already dealt with things that were a thousand times more emotionally taxing than anything Steve had gone through. He watched from the doorway as Sergei draped his suit jacket neatly over the back of a chair and rubbed at his eyes. 

“Thank you, Stevie. For… bed. House.” He said slowly, like the English didn’t fit on his tongue. The nickname made Steve smile. 

“You’re welcome, Sergei.”  


* * *

  
For his first couple days in Detroit, Sergei mostly slept, or blearily fielded calls from Steve’s living room, because there was a landline next to the couch. So there wasn’t a ton of time to get used to another human living in Steve’s house, because Sergei was basically a ghost who just sometimes had to explain he didn’t get kidnapped by rich Americans. 

On day three of relative silence between the two of them, Steve was sick of not knowing much about Sergei, so he did what he thought his parents would do in this situation: they’d feed their houseguest. 

So he brought some Chinese takeaway home and set the square containers of fried rice and General Tso’s down in front of Sergei. He put a bottle of Labatts in Sergei’s hand and made him sit down for dinner at the table with him. Sergei looked totally bewildered the entire time. 

Judging by the way this guy was shoving dumplings in his mouth, though, Steve was convinced pretty quickly that there hadn’t been a ton of Chinese food around wherever Sergei grew up. 

Thankfully, eating together was easy. It would almost be nice, if Steve could fucking come up with anything to talk about. Sergei probably wasn’t confident enough with his words to start a conversation. The food was basically gone by the time Steve thought of something to break the silence.

“My name isn’t Stevie, y’know.” He said. Absolutely desperate, he knew, but it was better than nothing. Plus, Sergei kept using the nickname, so maybe he didn’t know.

Sergei looked up at him, confused. “Jim said ‘Stevie Yzerman, the Captain’. You are… not Stevie?”

“It’s a nickname. Do you know about nicknames?” 

Sergei rolled his eyes. _Yes, idiot._ It made Steve smile, which made Sergei smile, which made Steve smile even wider. Infectious. 

“If not Stevie, what is name?” Sergei had picked at the label of his beer bottle with his thumbnail. It was peeling up from the condensation and it wrinkled when Sergei’s thumb pushed it back against the glass.

“Stephen.” 

Sergei frowned. He reached over the table and punched Steve in the shoulder. “That is same!”

“It’s a little different!” Steve laughed and rubbed at the sore spot on his shoulder. He hoped there wouldn’t be a bruise later. 

Sergei turned away and pouted about it. Steve was suddenly grateful that he had a beer in his hands as well, and they fell back into a weird silence. 

“_Stepan._” Sergei finally said, his accent jumping out. “Is Russian way of saying.”

“... One more time?” Steve asked quietly. A little indulgence wouldn’t kill him. 

Sergei said it again, still not looking up at Steve, letting his name fall off his tongue with a graceful inflection. It immediately sounded more comfortable in his mouth. He took a drink of his beer, and then grimaced lightly at the taste. Steve thought it was hilarious that he hated a pilsener but could probably handle straight vodka like a champion.

“_Stepka_, also.” 

Steve looked over then, getting confused about how many Russian iterations of his name there apparently were. Sergei was still grinning down at his bottle.

“Instead of Stevie. Like... the nickname?” Sergei really was going to town on his bottle’s label. A long strip of paper was ripped off from the edge. “Stepka.” 

It was hard to explain the way his name coming out of Sergei’s mouth made Steve feel. Steve held out his own Labatts, and Sergei smiled and reached over and tapped his own bottle to Steve’s.

“Cheers, Feds. I think you’re gonna like it here a lot.”  


* * *

  
Steve had been awake enough to know his alarm was going to go off in, like, twenty minutes, but not conscious enough to realize that his dream where Sergei was stolen back by intimidating Slavs in suits with guns and was being deported back to the Red Army wasn’t real. 

So the panic knocked him awake before he remembered that, no, Sergei was safe somewhere in Steve’s house, and yes, they were getting married this afternoon to keep him in Detroit. 

He needed to call Mike and get an update about how his crazy lawyers were handling the green-card situation. He needed to ask Sergei if he slept well, if he was nervous, if he had something nice to wear for the ceremony even though it was going to be as weird as possible. He needed to go brush his teeth, like, so badly. 

Steve groaned and rolled back into the pillows for three more minutes before he told himself he needed to get up and get ready.

It had been stange, becoming accustomed to the soft noises of someone else living in his big, desolate, Captain’s-salary-sized home over the week. He couldn’t help but notice immediately when there wasn’t water falling through pipes between where their bathrooms were lined up on opposite sides of the same wall. And, okay, well-- Steve prided himself on not being a _creep_, but he could usually tell when Sergei was awake just from listening closely and catching the spare sounds of his own morning routine. They had been pretty good at waking up around the same time. There was nothing now, though, and the foggy image from his dream of Sergei wrestling back unsuccessfully while being forced into a black car flashed through Steve’s head. 

So, sue him, he stepped out of his own ensuite and bedroom to go press an ear to Sergei’s door down the hallway. He kept brushing while he walked.

Toothpaste foam dripped down the side of Steve’s hand and Sergei’s room was silent. Steve let his brow furrow and then returned to his own room to spit and rinse. 

It was probably fine. Steve tried to rationalize that he was a light sleeper and would have heard if anyone broke in to steal his fiancé whom he barely knew. The water was cold in his mouth after he spit down the drain.

And it actually was fine, because from the bottom of the staircase he could hear Sergei’s steps in the kitchen. He was next to the stove, boiling some water, and his arms were crossed in front of his chest when Stevie sat down in a stool by the counter. The sun was low in the sky, still barely rising over Michigan. The kitchen was a little dark.

Sergei glanced over his shoulder, and smiled, and turned back to say _good morning_ quietly to the kettle. He still had circles under his eyes, but Steve remembered the number of different time-zones he’d been through lately and cut him a break. Jet lag was a bitch. Maybe he was just up early because he was nervous. After all… 

“Big day.” Steve said. Sergei nodded to thin air, not looking towards Steve. Steve tried to not stare too much at the wide, even line of his shoulders beneath the thin cotton shirt he had slept in. 

“Are you--” Steve began as soon as Sergei spun around suddenly and asked, “You want tea?” 

They both went a little red, embarrassed. Steve held his question behind his teeth. Sergei glanced at the ground and then back up to Steve one more time.

“Black tea?” Sergei tried again, accent lilting out gently across the tiles. Sergei had brought a little tin of the tea from Russia, shoved into his bag, and had been making it every day he’d been here. Steve hated the taste of it, and was worried about where to get more when Sergei’s tin inevitably ran out.

“Yes, please. Thanks.” Steve still hadn’t told Sergei he was more of a black coffee kind of guy. He wasn’t really planning on telling him either. He kept watching Sergei’s shoulder blades while he reached down another mug from the cabinet. 

“Are you anxious?” Steve asked, quietly.

“Anxious?”

“Um,” He tried to think of a simple synonym Sergei would know, “Scared.” 

Sergei let out a soft noise of understanding before he shook his head. 

“Um-- it is sad.” Sergei said to the stovetop, hand waiting on the knob to turn the burner off as the kettle’s whistle was getting exponentially louder. It only screeched for a second before he turned the knob and the steam settled. 

“Hey, I’m not that bad, I swear.” Steve laughed, pretending like that didn’t hurt him below the ribs a little bit. Sergei turned and looked kind of distressed. 

“No, not you! Um-- my family, mother and father… ” And then it clicked; Sergei made the choice to give up potentially ever seeing his family again when he defected and they weren’t going to be at their son’s wedding because they didn’t even know he was getting married because they were in Russia and Sergei was standing around in Steve Yzerman’s kitchen in his boxers and an old tshirt that didn’t even belong to him brewing the most disgusting tea on the planet because he missed his home.

“Oh.” 

Sergei spooned some-- too much-- sugar into his own mug. No milk. He left Steve’s tea alone, but passed it over the counter. They didn’t touch hands when Steve took it. It tasted bitter and terrible, just like it had the first time Sergei let him try it.

“Is okay. I will be okay.” Sergei told him. He sounded confident, like he was trying to make this not a big deal. It hurt Steve’s feelings. “For NHL? Is worth it.”

The ceramic was too hot against Steve’s palm. “I’m gonna take care of you, you know that, right?”

Sergei’s face went strange and hard. Carefully measured. Steve felt like he was looking in a mirror. “Stevie--”

“As the Captain, I promise I’m going to make sure you’re alright. Or as your--” He couldn’t make himself say it. “As, as whatever you want me to be, but you are going to be taken care of.”

Steve watched Sergei’s face, clean and cold as marble. He was chewing on his lower lip and thinking. Translating. Figuring it out. Steve had presumed, initially, the delay in conversation would be frustrating but he surprised himself with how easy being patient was, as if the idea of getting frustrated with Sergei wasn’t even a possibility.

Sergei stepped around the edge of the counter, moving slowly so he didn’t spill his tea over the sides of the mug. 

“I go to, getting dressed.” He cringed a little after the words left his mouth, he knew that wasn’t the right way to say it. 

“I will go get dressed.” Steve fixed for him weakly. Sergei’s face relaxed, slightly. 

“I’ll go get dressed.” He repeated. Steve nodded. 

Sergei paused for a moment, thinking about something again, and Steve wondered exactly how many serious thoughts went through Sergei’s head in a single day, because if he had to bet, it really seemed like the number would be in the millions. Sergei leaned in and pressed a tiny little kiss to Steve’s cheek, lingered nearby for a second, and then he was gone. His footsteps were quiet as he disappeared into the house. 

The mug was still searing into Steve’s palm and the steam swirled delicately up into the air before dissipating. The phantom kiss stayed on Steve’s face for hours.  


* * *

  
Their wedding ceremony at court was exactly as slow, unromantic, and anxiety-inducing as Steve had been expecting, but all in all it went smoothly. They were married before noon. He didn’t slip up on his unbearably simple vows, and Sergei held his own well enough despite his anxious eyes and thick accent. They only had three witnesses: Jim Lites, Marian Ilitch, for some reason, and one of the team’s lawyers whom Steve had never even seen before. Steve’s stomach flipped when the judge read off, _You may kiss your husband._ Sergei had smiled and leaned down so he could give Steve a kiss so fast and chaste that it put every other kiss he’d ever received to shame. 

Their tiny audience clapped politely, like a resigned congratulations for the group effort at the end of a productive business meeting. The judge rushed them out of the courtroom because she had a case about a parking ticket debacle to deal with in fifteen minutes. 

Sergei had had to wear his Red Army game-day suit again, though Steve had pressed it off in the basement the night beforehand. _It’s still a wedding,_ Steve wanted to explain that he thought they both should look nice in each other’s memories for when they looked back on today. If that was something they ever would do, later on. It embarrassed Steve a lot, though, so he just shut up and let Sergei watch with an amused smile while he ironed out his coat for him and pretended he couldn’t feel the heat in his cheeks. 

Consequently, Steve had loaned Sergei a clean dress-shirt. Also a tie, deep red with a black paisley pattern embroidered onto it, and some nice cufflinks for the ceremony. Sergei had accepted these things politely and gratefully. The tops of his cheeks had been flushed pink when he fixed them onto his outfit. Steve himself wore a nicer suit, a pinstriped three-piece that he specifically did not _ever_ wear to games, with an unpatterned tie. It was scarlett and satin because, somehow, everything in his wardrobe had become inescapably color-coded to Detroit over the years. Marian had nodded positively after seeing Steve and Sergei step into the courthouse lobby together.

After the whole procedure of being married was done, Marian gave Steve a bouquet of white Aster Peonies and the lawyer gave Sergei a white stack of papers for him and Steve to sign a hundred times so the green card process could truly and fully begin. Then, on the steps outside, temporarily free from the state of Michigan’s bureaucracy, Steve stretched out his back and Sergei smiled at him. The sun was out, and Steve was sweating beneath his vest and jacket. 

“Was not so bad,” Sergei seemed tired, but happy. “I thought would be much longer and more worse.” 

“Does it feel good to be here officially?” Steve asked. Sergei stepped so lightly down the steps of the courthouse that Steve almost wanted to qualify it as skipping. 

In lieu of a reply, Sergei held up his left hand and waggled his fingers so the sunlight caught and glimmered along the golden band around his third finger. Steve wondered if his own ring could shine like that.

“You tell it to me, Stepka.” Sergei had smiled like he had won something. 

It made Steve laugh. He adjusted the flowers tucked against his elbow and watched as Sergei ran ahead down to the sidewalk where Steve’s car was waiting at the curb for them. 

And of course, it was all just for show, a sham of a marriage to let Sergei stay and become the hockey superstar they both knew he was meant to be, but Steve couldn’t do much about the way his heart ached when he realized Sergei was still at the bottom of the steps, waiting for Steve to catch up. 

Steve walked down and stopped on the first step, taller than Sergei for once. Sergei had reached a hand out to take the flowers from Steve for a while, and Steve was happy to pass them over to his new husband.  


* * *

  
Months ago, when he had told Devellano that Sergei was the best skater he had ever seen, he wasn’t lying. However, months ago, Steve really didn’t have a grasp on exactly how _fit_ Sergei really was. It was Steve’s job to tell muscular men what to do and he grew up in locker rooms, so any attractiveness about the male figure had kind of dissolved into something that wasn’t particularly exciting anymore. Well-- not until Sergei had marched confidently through the house shirtless at seven in the morning while Steve was still eating his scrambled eggs. Fucking… eight pack out for the entire neighborhood to see.

“Uh,” 

Sergei pried open the sliding glass door, and spared Steve a smirk that practically killed. 

“Too hot today. No morning running.” Which, frankly, was a fair point. It was barely morning and the little radio Steve kept on the counter had already claimed it to be eighty five degrees outside, a beautiful and sunny day that’d get a little unbearable in the afternoon, and be beautiful again by the evening.

Steve swallowed his eggs roughly. He did not choke. Sergei marched across the patio and dove confidently into the deeper end of Steve’s in-ground swimming pool. Steve had no idea where he got the swimsuit, or if it was that small on purpose. 

And, the thing was, that Sergei _clothed_ was already something that Steve agonized over quietly. Married or otherwise, Sergei was just barely beginning to be Steve’s friend, and he wasn’t going to take advantage of their tremendously weird situation just because he happened to have a little crush on his husband. 

That said, he figured there was no harm in taking his plate outside and sitting in one of the pool chairs in the shade to watch Sergei’s back ripple beneath the surface of the water as he swam the length of the pool. That had to be fine. No one would hold that against him.

After ten laps, Steve’s eggs had gone cold. After twenty, Steve completely abandoned the plate on the ground in favor of keeping count of the laps. After thirty six, Sergei finally hauled himself out of the pool, his chest heaving slightly. His hands were flat against the edge of the pool when he pushed himself up and out of the water. Steve felt an incredibly normal amount about Sergei’s arms. He kept his face straight.

Water spilled onto the concrete below his thighs when Sergei sat down, his feet still in the water. His hair was grown out a little bit and currently plastered down to the back of Sergei’s neck, looking longer than normal.

“Thirty six.” Steve said.

Sergei did some quick math, and then scoffed. “More.” 

“Trust me, I counted.” 

Sergei grinned, devilish and dripping wet at the edge of the pool. “Come swim.” 

Steve made a show of looking behind him, over his shoulders at the empty yard, before turning back. Sergei was still smiling and the chlorinated water dripped down the sides of his face in little rivulets. 

“Oh, sorry, did you mean me?”

“Stevie, swim with me.” 

“Well, Feds, I’m eating here.” Steve gestured towards his plate of forgotten, congealed eggs on the cement. Sergei’s eyebrow went up skeptically.

“Stevie. Please come swim with me.” He repeated, enunciating everything clearly. Intonation turned it from a question to a command. Steve wondered, briefly, if the phrase was something he memorized specifically. Nothing against Feds, but even when he wasn’t excited, his sentence structuring skills were questionable at best.

Steve briefly considered the emotional repercussions of stripping his clothes off and swimming with Sergei. They all seemed terrible for him, specifically. It’s not like he could expect Sergei to know about how he felt. Also, for the record, he wasn’t keen on letting himself walk into embarrassing situations intentionally. 

On the other hand, Sergei was fully out of the water now, standing up on his knees while he stared at Steve with a ridiculous, pleading face. Steve held out with a cold heart until Sergei sighed dramatically and frowned as if Steve was really being quite cruel to him.

“Stepka...” 

“Oh my god.” Steve pulled himself out of his chair, “Fine, just don’t shoot.”

Sergei threw his hands into the air, laughing at the delight of his win. His first Detroit celly, Steve thought.

He was kind of relieved he didn’t get to see Sergei’s reaction while he pulled his shirt off. Steve could live without knowing where exactly Sergei’s eyes wandered to when Steve couldn’t see. But, when he was free from his clothes, and feeling much more basically-naked than he had been several minutes ago, Sergei was suddenly standing very close to Steve. 

His stupid smile spoke only of mischief. By the time Steve figured out what was happening, it was already too late, because Sergei had gotten a hold on Steve’s hips and had essentially ran him backwards and thrown him into the water. The splash was mighty. Steve got water up his nose and in his throat from when he fell into the water while shouting lofty threats at Sergei. 

The water was freezing in comparison to the mid-morning heat. When Steve broke the surface, whipping his head back and forth to shake the water from his ears, wiping it out of his eyes, Sergei was busy just absolutely hollering. 

“Fuckin’ A, Feds!”

Even above water, there was barely time to breathe because Sergei took a running start and threw himself into the water. The splash from the cannonball was just as dramatic, and as Sergei sunk into the water, Steve moved towards him, grabbing at Sergei’s shoulders to push him back under the water. Sergei got shoved below and his hand shot out above the surface, waving around to smack Stevie in the face. 

This was fun, and easy to laugh about, until Sergei grabbed a hand around Stevie’s ankle and pulled sharply, dragging Steve down too. The water rushed past Stevie’s ears. For a brief second, when Steve opened his eyes, he had a blue view of Sergei’s face, all twisted up in a smile, and of the distorted laugh that bubbled out of him. There were spears of sunlight cutting through the water. They went back up for air, and Sergei was still giggling when he reached out to ruffle up the wet, spiky ends of Steve’s hair. 

And then everything except Steve’s heart slowed down. 

Sergei just kept reaching across the rippled surface of the water to push sections of wet hair back against Steve’s skull, to make them lie flat. And it was just-- too much. Steve reached up quickly and grabbed Sergei’s wrist to hold it still. He didn’t know what his face did, but Sergei’s hand curled back, suddenly, like he realized he hadn’t meant to touch at all. His wedding band glimmered a little in the sunlight. 

This wasn’t how they were supposed to touch each other. 

Husbands could tenderly brush each other’s hair out of their eyes, sure, of course, but it’s not-- they weren’t there yet. Not in the way actually mattered. 

They were teammates, Steve remembered suddenly. Roommates. They were just friends.

Steve lowered their hands into the water so he didn’t have to look at the way his first finger and thumb circled tightly around Sergei’s wrist anymore. 

“I’m-- I am sorry.” Sergei said, slow and carefully. His smile was gone, but he didn’t back down. He didn’t sound actually apologetic, but Steve let go of him anyways. 

Steve backed up and away until he was in the shallow water. Sergei moved to swim after him but Steve stopped him with a look. Sergei sunk down into the water until his nose and mouth were below the surface. His brow was furrowed and Steve didn’t know what the hell to do with that.

“I’ll get us some towels and be back in a minute.” Steve said instead, making sure his tone was even and neutral. Sergei dipped under the water and kicked off towards the deeper end of the pool. That’s all Steve saw before he started making his way towards the linen closet inside the house. 

When he got back outside, towels tucked below his arm, Sergei was standing along the edge of the pool with his heels balanced over the edge to stretch out his calves. He was wiping water off his face. His face was a little worried when Steve walked over and his face was half hidden behind his hand.

“This… are okay?” _Between the two of them_, Steve filled in the rest of the sentence silently.

He just smiled up at Sergei and shoved him in the chest, hard, so he fell back into the water, arms windmilling. When Sergei came back up, he was laughing again, and reached out to grab Steve’s hand, thankful for the help getting out of the water.  


* * *

  
Sometimes, Sergei would disappear for hours, and Steve would casually search every room in the house for him. Mostly, he’d find him somewhere, curled up tightly in a corner with his English books and his little Russian to English dictionary spread out around him. 

Steve spotted him sitting outside from a window. Sergei was stretched out on his back on the grassy lawn. One leg had been crossed over his bent knee. He had a bottle near him and a book balanced carefully against his thighs. Steve made his way outside and sat down on the grass next to him. Sergei didn’t look up.

“What are you up to?” 

Sergei held up his book so Steve could read the cover: _ English! for Everyone: россияне to English focused. Volume 5. _

“Oh, great. Volume five already?”

Sergei spared him a glance, mouth flat and unimpressed. He held the book out sideways so Steve could look at the paragraph explaining, in-depth, what the hell an adverb actually was.

“It is boring but it is helping.” 

“What’s with the bottle?” 

“I tell you, it is fucking boring. Booze makes more fun.” 

Steve grinned. “A drink every time you organize a sentence properly?” 

Sergei turned his page over, “Yes.” 

“Why outside?” 

Sergei gestured vaguely towards the blue sky. “It is a beautiful, lovely, handsome, pretty, pleasant day. Not going to waste warm weather.”

Steve laughed lightly and asked, “Was Russia that bad?” 

Sergei looked at him gravely, “Frozen for ten months a year, Stepka. Ten.”

Steve turned his face up at the sun and closed his eyes to properly reflect on how miserable the five month long Michigan winters could be. Ten sounded awful. His face felt warm. 

When he stood up, Sergei turned to look at him with an unimpressed frown. “Not keeping my company?” 

“Let me get a beer, Feds. I’ll come back out and help you study after.” 

Sergei snorted back a laugh and threw a stupid thumbs up into the air, turned his attention back to his adverbs. Steve grabbed two beers, an opener, two shot glasses, and as an after-thought, a highlighter pen that he stuck between his teeth before he made his way back outside. The highlighter was a just-in-case decision.

He sat down and popped the caps off the bottles. Sergei traded him the bottle for his textbook, which was opened to a list of vocabulary words about different types of clothing. 

“Quiz.” Sergei demanded and he lied back down in the grass. “Shot at end if I win.”

Steve laughed, drank, and began listing off the terms. He watched in delight as Sergei gestured where each piece was meant to go: blouse and a slap to his chest, boots and one kicked up foot, socks and another kicked up foot, necklace and two fingers taped against either side of his neck, hat and a tap to the top of the head, jacket and his arms stretched out in front of him, ring and his left hand shoved playfully into Steve’s face… 

By the end of the page, he had missed only one word, so Steve still poured them both a shot. Sergei sat up and made Steve loop his arm through the crook of Sergei’s so they could knock ‘em back as a lover’s shot on the grass. It burned in Steve’s throat and he fell back against the lawn too, smiling and squinting at the sunlight in their eyes.  


* * *

  
Some things just couldn’t be helped, like the way noise carried over through the wall from Sergei’s bedroom and into Steve’s. 

And, really, it had only been a few nights in a row now where Steve was laid up, awake as hell, in his bed, straining to hear Sergei’s voice slowly making his way through a book page. Quiet enough to not really make out any words, but loud enough for Steve to hear him speaking. And it wasn’t annoying, not at all, but it made Steve’s skin crawl to hear Sergei stumbling over phrases. Steve wanted to help. 

A cursory glance at his alarm clock said it was a little past eleven. Steve flipped the blankets back and got out of bed. The walk down the hall only took a few seconds. Sergei was easier to hear, now that there was just a door between them. 

Steve knocked, gently, and Sergei stopped. Steve leaned himself up against the jamb of the door, and waited until Sergei pulled the door open. Steve tried to smile nicely.

Sergei asked, “Too loud?”

“Nope.” Steve scratched the side of his nose a little bit. Casual was the key here. “No, I was wondering if… maybe, you’d like it more if I read to you?” 

Sergei’s hand had curled around the side of his door and he breathed slowly. And then, he pulled it open the rest of the way and stepped aside to let Steve in. 

The room looked significantly more lived-in since the last time Steve had been in here, when he had carried Sergei’s bag for him. He had pushed the bedframe into the corner, rather than leave it in the center of the wall, and the sheets looked rumpled and slept-on. The closet was open slightly, and his clothes were hanging evenly off their hangers. Sergei walked back to the bed and picked up the book he had been reading to hand it over. Steve followed behind and took the book when he passed it back. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the creased paperback copy that Steve had owned since he was a teenager. Sergei probably nicked it from a shelf downstairs. 

“Good choice.” Steve said, “It’s a little nonsensical, though.”

“I know story already.” Sergei explained. He crawled back into bed to punch the pillows around so there was a spot for Steve on half of the bed. “I remember the picture in front.”

Steve sat down on top of the covers and cracked the spine open one more time. It fell open naturally to Sergei’s page. 

Sergei scoffed and then reached up, grabbed Steve’s shoulder, and pulled him backwards so Steve was leaning against the pillows and headboard of the bed. “Relax.” 

And it’s not like Steve wasn’t _unused_ to being bossed around, but the confident tone of Sergei’s voice still kind of surprised him. He let very few people boss him around. He got comfortable against the pillows. Sergei tucked himself up against Steve’s side, his head against Steve’s shoulder so he could read along silently. 

Sergei pointed at the top of a paragraph in the middle of the page. 

“Start there.” 

Steve glanced sideways, mostly getting a view of the top of Sergei’s head. He cleared his throat and began to read, slowly and carefully, taking care to enunciate each word clearly. Sometimes, he could feel Sergei’s mouth moving lightly near the skin on his arm, mouthing out words at the same time. 

And Steve hadn’t read out loud for an audience in a while. Sergei would poke Steve in the ribs when he spoke too fast, or missed a word, or for some other little mistake he hadn’t realized. Maybe Sergei was just looking for excuses to interrupt because it was ticklish and Steve would yelp whenever Sergei prodded at him.

But, either way, Steve read through the chapter, slowly and meticulously. It took about an hour and a half, according to the little digital clock on the desk across the room. It was dark in the hallway and it was dark outside. 

Sergei was breathing deep and even, asleep against Steve’s side. They had slipped down the headboard a bit, lying down now more than they were sitting up. 

Without trying to jostle him too much, Steve dropped the book on the floor beside the bed and turned out the light. He wondered, briefly, if he should go back to his own bed or not, but when he shifted to stand up, Sergei’s hand reached out and caught around Steve’s waist. He protested with something soft and unintelligible, and shifted on the mattress so there was more space for Steve to lie down. 

And again, Steve Yzerman did not let people boss him around often. He settled over the sheets and let Sergei throw an arm over his chest because he wanted to, not because he was told to.  


* * *

  
Steve was just trying to find a pen that worked so he could sign this check before he ran to the bank and got some groceries on his way home. He was just trying to get some errands done. Sergei wouldn’t stop making toast with peanut butter on it, they needed more bread.

There was a useless, too-deep drawer in the kitchen that he had been adding and subtracting random shit into and from basically since he had moved in. It was a constant cycle of things that didn’t really have a place but were too ugly to just leave out on the counter in there. So there had to be a pen somewhere in there, Steve was sure of it. 

He went excavating, and came up with a folded up receipt he didn’t recognize. He didn’t remember putting it there, either, so he opened it up. What he found was a scrawled out list in Sergei’s handwriting:

beer = пиво  
Toothbrush инструмент, teeth brushing глагол,  
You brushed your <strike>tooth</strike> teeth  
<strike>плыви со мной</strike>  
Corvette.  
HOLD A CANDLE TO -- выражение  
Inflammable = flammable (?)  
unrequited (любов)

The list was objectively kind of funny, even if Steve couldn’t read the Cyrillic parts. It wasn’t often he got a glimpse into Sergei’s thought process like this, even if it was just basically some word association on the back of a wrinkled receipt from Meijer’s. What wasn’t funny-- what was throwing Steve off-- was the last item on the list.

Where the hell was Sergei finding words like ‘unrequited’? Why the hell did he think it was significant enough to _write down_?

Steve flipped the receipt over, maybe hoping the printed ink would reveal a clue. It didn’t. All he learned was that at some point in July he bought a six pack of beer, some new socks, some batteries, and a chocolate bar that he remembered giving to Sergei because he thought it was silly how he called every kind of candy a ‘Nestlé bar’. Steve turned it over again and stared. 

Unrequited. 

And-- it’s just, just... like, there’s no way that had anything to do with Steve. There was no way. But if it _wasn’t_ about Steve, then who? 

It’s not like Sergei was trapped in Steve’s house for the summer; he’d taken the car out to Somerset Mall and disappeared while exploring during the afternoons plenty of times on his own. 

So it… wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that Sergei met someone he was interested in. He was allowed to be interested in other people. It probably didn’t even really count as adultery, if he was seeing someone else, considering their situation. 

But the idea bothered Steve, nonetheless. The receipt was getting wrinkled in his hands. It’s not as if he could tell Sergei to stop it. He was barely his husband, wasn’t really his Captain yet, and he certainly wasn’t in charge of Sergei.

And, of course, speak of the devil and all that. Steve glanced up when he heard footsteps in the hallway and saw Sergei frozen completely still in the doorway of the kitchen. 

“What’s this, Feds?” Steve held up the receipt. 

Before he even knew what was happening, Sergei had jumped forward and had thrown a hand up against Steve’s face, pushing him off-balance. He had lunged and snatched the receipt away from Steve. 

“Jesus fucking Christ--” Steve slapped Sergei’s hand away, angry suddenly, “What the hell?”

Sergei backed up immediately, staring at the paper in his hand. Steve’s chest hurt. “What’s your issue?” 

“What?” Sergei finally managed to say. His eyes were wide, clearly stressed out, and a little glazed over like he wasn’t hearing anything that Steve was saying. Steve couldn’t stop the frown pulled on his own face. He didn’t even know why he was so upset. 

“Why can’t I see it?” 

Sergei’s face was entirely too still, bright red, and then after a hefty pause, he spit out: “You-- you not take my things.”

“It was in the junk drawer, Feds--”

“Do not take my things again.” He interrupted, much more clearly. Despite the anger, Steve was kind of delighted and proud of the clarity in the sentence itself. The receipt was twisted up, incomprehensible now, and hidden within Sergei’s hand. “Please.”

And just like that, all of the fight fell out of Steve. He hadn’t been really upset with Sergei yet, and he didn’t want to start now, not over something as small and stupid as an old receipt. It wasn’t worth it. Steve sighed.

“Okay, Sergei. I won’t touch. Not a problem.”

Sergei was breathing hard, but he nodded. His face had gone hard and was impossible to read, so Steve knew he was thinking way too hard again. He just wished he could figure out about _what_ exactly. He didn’t want to end on this note, when everything was red-hot and frayed between them, so he offered up the best thing he could:

“I can go get us some ice cream?” 

It’d let Steve out of the house so he didn’t go stir crazy. It’d give Sergei space so he didn’t find Steve cruel and imposing. It’d give them something nice to do instead of thinking about this later. 

Sergei smiled, just a little, at Steve. It almost looked sincere. 

“Okay. But you pay.”  


* * *

  
Despite his best efforts to stop it, things had gotten weird between them after the receipt incident. Afternoons had become filled with politely skirting around each other. And, like, yes, this was better than hating each other, but it still sucked. Steve didn’t know how to fix the way Sergei would turn pink and leave the room as nonchalantly as possible when Steve arrived. They didn’t eat together anymore. Sergei stopped making Steve a mug of tea in the mornings. He’d find his ways out of conversations, so awkwardly sometimes, that he’d just give up and walk out of the room. He would grab the keys and take Steve’s car for a few hours, leaving him stranded in their house. It was miserable.

And Steve considered himself a smart guy. A good problem solver. Generally, a creative thinker. He had no fucking clue what to do about this. He didn’t even really get what the problem was in the first place. It shouldn’t-- Sergei didn’t need to feel _bad_ about seeing someone else, if that’s what this was about. He was allowed to, Steve told himself. Steve had backed off tremendously after everything with the receipt, sleeping in his own bed and keeping his hands to himself. Sergei should have known that was permission enough to do what he wanted. 

So, Steve cracked open another beer and sat at the dining room table and stared miserably out the big windows in the dining room so he could catch glimpses of Sergei swimming. It was kind of late to be swimming, but that didn’t stop Sergei. The man had an incredible dedication to his morning runs and evening swims as a way to stay fit. Steve was so glad he ended up buying a house with a pool, if only for Sergei’s sake. 

He watched through the window as Sergei stood up in the shallow end of the pool and wiped his hair back out of his face. He looked so handsome, and Steve was sick of it; this didn’t need to be so complicated. It felt like the last minute of a game for a week now. He knew if you shot the puck enough times, one of the shots was bound to hit the back of the net. He would figure out how to win OT eventually.

Steve abandoned his beer on the table and stood up fast enough to make the chair screech across the floor when it got pushed backwards. He peeled off his shirt off over his head and whipped it into a corner of the couch as he walked past. He threw open the sliding doors to the backyard and marched out across the lawn.

“Sergei!” 

Sergei turned towards Steve with one hand tangled in his own hair still. His expression was terribly stoic as he watched Steve’s parade towards him. Steve walked down the steps of the pool, not caring about if his jeans got soaked or not. He was up to his knees in the water when he reached Sergei, grabbed his face, and pulled him down for a kiss. Sergei was frozen, and Steve realized this was a mistake, and then Sergei’s hand curled against Steve’s shoulder and he finally kissed back. 

Steve pulled away and Sergei’s face was, maybe for the first time ever, completely open. He was confused, and shocked, and his lips were red, and he wasn’t angry when he opened his eyes. Steve let his hands fall down to Sergei’s jaw.

“It’s pretty rude to ignore your husband,” Steve said, disregarding the knot in his throat that made his voice feel all tight, “for an entire fucking week.”

Sergei was silent, looking at Steve like he was an idiot. Then he started laughing, loud and bright, and he leaned down to kiss Steve again, and again, and again.

“You are an asshole.” Sergei told him with a smile before leaning down one more time. 

“Fuck you!” Steve was still cradling Sergei’s face. 

“I thought-- you find out, and become unhappy with me.” 

“Found out.” Steve could cry, he really could just _cry_. “And it’d be ‘became’ not ‘become’”

Sergei just laughed once more and nodded. He pulled away, dragging Steve out of the water by his hand. Once they were out of the pool, Steve turned Sergei around and walked him backyards until he fell flat against one of the pool-chairs. He crawled over Sergei’s lap until his knees were folded up along the outsides of Sergei’s thighs. The aluminum supports of the chair groaned beneath the weight of them both. He reached up and pulled Steve down by the back of his neck to kiss him again. Sergei tasted like chlorine and smelled like pool water and sweat, and it was driving Steve insane. He wasn’t sure which one of them deepened the kiss, but suddenly Sergei was dragging his tongue over Steve’s teeth and Steve had to pull back just to, like, remember how to breathe properly. 

“Stevie,” Sergei’s soft voice called him back down, though. “Stepka,” His hand was heavy and warm where it was petting along Steve’s hip. “Is just us.”

Steve ducked his head down, groaning and hiding his face against the side of Sergei’s chest. The nickname was a treat and it made Steve’s blood run hot in his veins. He was right; the yard was large enough, the sky was dark enough, the fences were tall enough. No one could see them, not unless they were standing in the house and looking out into the yard from there. He knew logistically that no one would see them, but the idea that _ yes,_ they might be watched, somehow, thrilled Steve in a terrible way. He didn’t necessarily want to do this here, on the fucking pool chairs, but he was lightheaded and kind of convinced that if he didn’t take a chance on the way Sergei was sprawled out right now, long and lean, just for him, then he’d never get the opportunity again. 

The low pitch of his own voice was shocking, “Not on the pool chairs. There’s no room.” 

“You are bossy.” Sergei said with a breathy laugh. He did an easy sit up, moving Steve up and backwards in his lap. Steve squeezed his knees against the sides of Sergei’s hips now that he was straddling Sergei’s legs. Sergei circled his arms around Steve’s waist. His hair was still wet and it curled just a little bit at the ends. It all was seriously hurting Steve’s feelings. He couldn’t look at how beautiful Sergei was anymore, so he pressed his face into Sergei’s neck instead.

“I’m the Captain for a reason.” Steve said into Sergei’s skin, biting gently at the tendon that was jumping in his neck. Sergei shivered beneath Steve’s hands as he bit back a groan, and Steve filed that little implication away for further exploration at a later date. 

Steve got his hands twisted up in Sergei’s hair and tilted his head back to kiss him properly, to take advantage of the height difference from how he was kneeling over Sergei’s thighs. And Sergei let him, letting the weight of his skull fall back into Steve’s hands while they kissed. Sergei bit Steve’s bottom lip, sucked on it gently, and Steve had to pull back again before he burst into flames, or something equally melodramatic. Sergei just blinked up at him and smiled. 

Both of their chests were heaving. 

“Feds, you wanna talk to me?” Steve asked as his hands dropped to hold the sides of Sergei’s neck. Sergei’s eyes screwed shut. He shook his head. 

“I do not know how to say it.” 

And that was enough to give Steve real reason to pause. His heart was still hammering away in his chest. Sergei didn’t know how to say… these kinds of things. Sexy things, or even not sexy things, like how they were gonna anatomically arrange plug A in slot B. Or, no, Sergei probably knew how to say it, just not in a way Steve was going to understand. 

But where the hell had Steve expected Sergei to have learned stuff like that? Not in his little pile of English textbooks, he was pretty fucking sure. Maybe the phrase dictionary, but probably not. It was irresponsible to be doing this, to be asking Sergei for this. He knew it, but he was aching with how badly he wanted to keep going. Sergei just made him feel desperate in a way he rarely ever was.

Sergei groaned again, less aroused and more annoyed this time, and pushed his forehead against the center of Steve’s chest, snapping him back to the predicament at hand. Steve looked up at the sky and if he squinted he could make out the stars starting to come out for the night. It was quiet enough to hear the water lapping at the edges of the pool. His hands found their way to rest against Sergei’s shoulders.

“I want-- ” Sergei quietly said into Steve’s chest. He sounded frustrated, for a couple of reasons. 

“But?”

Sergei’s hands moved the backs of Steve’s thighs, just below his ass but above where the legs of his jeans were damp, and tugged him closer. Steve’s stomach dropped at the movement. 

“Sergei?” 

“Stevie, I want to.” Wasn’t that good enough?

It wasn’t until Sergei had already stood up that Steve felt the shift in their gravity. Sergei had a firm grip beneath Steve’s thighs, not likely to let him go, but Steve still wrapped his legs around Sergei’s hips instinctively anyways. He did not want to be dropped. Sergei carried him off the patio, away from the pool chairs, and into the yard where the grass was soft and dry. He didn’t let Steve go until he was kneeling down on the ground and could set Steve down carefully.

It was hard to properly see Sergei clearly in the dark, the sun had certainly set by now, but there was a faint yellow light from the house’s windows that outlined the right side of his face. Their chests were pressed together in an even line but Sergei was craning his neck back so he could look Steve in the eye.

“If you spoke--” Sergei said quietly. He was focused on Steve’s face and the sentence went unfinished. Steve’s grasp on Sergei’s arm tightened. “I-- want to tell you things.”

“Yeah?”

“Pretty things. Not English things.” 

“Okay.” Steve told him, “Go for it.”

Sergei paused for a moment, breathing slowly. And then, a short string of Russian fell out of his mouth. 

His voice made a shiver claw its way up Steve’s spine. Sergei smiled and spoke again, soft and utterly incomprehensible and lovely. Sergei kissed Steve once, twice, before he kept going in his mother tongue. 

Maybe it was less about the content, and more about the gentle inflection, because Sergei murmuring God-knows-what into Steve’s ear made him feel like he was about to fucking pass out. And once he got started, it was as if Sergei couldn’t _stop_ speaking, reverential, like he had kept so much inside that there was no choice now except to let it all spill out now. Steve couldn’t even tell where the one word stopped and the next started. All he knew was that this was the longest consecutive stretch that Sergei had ever spoken aloud to him.

It was just too much. It wasn’t enough. 

Steve used the hand on Sergei’s arm to gain some leverage and roll them over sideways in the grass so he was on top of Sergei again. 

He just stared down at Sergei, spread out in the grass, and tried to not think about how hot his face felt. 

“Ty takoy privlekatel'nyy.” Sergei said softly. 

Steve swallowed around dry summer air, “I don’t know what that means.”

Sergei surged upwards to kiss Steve again. Steve met him halfway. 

Sergei’s hands were big and hot on Steve’s waist and back. He kept running them up and down over Steve’s ribs, and it didn’t make Steve feel _ small_, but he was very aware of how much larger Sergei was than him. 

Steve pulled away, sitting back against Sergei’s hips again. He could feel where he was hard against Steve’s ass, despite the layers of fabric. Steve caught his breath and trailed his hands down Sergei’s chest, from his collarbones, over his nipples, over the ridges of his abs, and stopping once his thumbs slipped beneath the hem of Sergei’s swimsuit.

“You have to show me what you want.” Steve said, deadly serious, while he rubbed his thumbs in little circles. Sergei’s eyes slammed shut and he nodded. He grabbed Steve’s wrist, moving his hand down to his cock instead. 

“There.” 

Steve’s throat went dry. He curled a palm over the front of the swimsuit, feeling the shape of it, getting used to the idea of having Sergei in his hand. 

Sergei whined from the back of this throat and started reaching for the front of Steve’s jeans. He had to lean up a bit, balancing in an awkward sit-up to rip the front open. 

“Fucking-- buttons?” Sergei shrieked, equal parts amused and annoyed by the button-fly of Steve’s 501s. 

“These are Levi’s!” Steve snapped back, like that was any excuse, before he helped Sergei push them off his legs. Sergei fell back against the grass, giggling like a freak, while Steve stood up to step out of his pants fully. They were wet, still, and stuck to his calves. Sergei saved Steve the trouble and peeled his swimsuit off. 

Sergei was still laughing between breaths when Steve settled between his legs again. 

It wasn’t until Steve had grabbed one of Sergei’s knees and pushed it backward, folding Sergei up in half, that he wondered about condoms. Real lube. 

“Spit.” Sergei told him plainly, like he could read Steve’s mind while he hesitated. “Have done before. Is fine.” 

Steve really wasn’t sure if his face could get any more flushed, but he decided, fuck it, and stuck his first two fingers into his own mouth. Couldn’t find out if he never tried. 

Sergei watched him suck on his own fingers with dark eyes. He wasn’t laughing anymore. 

If they weren’t using lube, Steve was ready to take his sweet time opening Sergei up, one knuckle at a time. Finger fucking wasn’t necessarily Steve’s favorite sexual pass-time, but he was thankful Sergei had let him go as slow and methodically as he thought he needed to so he didn’t hurt him on accident. That was the last fucking thing he wanted. 

Sergei did reach down and drag Steve’s other hand back up to his cock once Steve had two fingers working slowly inside him, though. Sergei kept a hand wrapped over Steve’s. He set the pace of the strokes and Steve just followed along obediently. The worst Steve did was occasionally swipe his thumb over the slit to watch a shiver rake its way through Sergei. 

“There you go, you’re doing really well.” Steve whispered into the night air. Sergei whimpered, and nodded along to the words.

“You don’t even know how sexy you are.” Steve felt like he was in a daze. He was lightheaded enough to be drunk. “You’re unbelievable, Sergei.”

Sergei’s face was red, and he nodded along to Steve’s words. Steve let go of his cock just to lean over and hold Sergei’s face when he kissed him again. 

Frankly, Steve was content enough to kneel on the grass and work Sergei to the edge just like this, but apparently he had other plans. Sergei wrapped one long leg around the small of Steve’s back, edging him forward with a quiet groan, asking for what he wanted that way. 

It wasn’t until Sergei had pulled Steve flat against him that Steve realized exactly how fucking hard he was. Nothing had really even happened to him yet, he just-- taking care of Sergei was so exciting. It already felt so good just to sit there and do what Sergei wanted, and to do it _well_.

“Steve--” Sergei finally croaked out, his voice lower than normal. “Stepka.” 

Steve got it. He spit into his own palm and jacked himself a few times to slick himself up. He folded Sergei’s knee back again, and kept his hand there to hold Sergei in place while he pressed inside him. Sergei let out a winded, _Fuck--_ that Steve barely even heard.

Sergei’s eyes flew open. A few tears dripped down the side of his face, disappearing somewhere along his temples. Steve kissed him, trying to distract from any pain and let Sergei adjust to the intrusion. He wanted Sergei to feel this incredible too.

Sergei had one hand tangled in the lawn, pulling up blades of grass and getting dirt below his fingernails. His other hand was grasping Steve’s arm so fiercely Steve just knew there was going to be a bruise in the shape of Sergei’s fingers there later. He didn’t really care about that, though.

Self control was the main thing here. Steve was absolutely not going to move until Sergei stopped blinking tears out, even if that meant leaning down with his fists clenched and his forearms down on either side of Sergei’s chest to try and stop shaking. 

“Okay, okay. Okay.” Sergei gasped out, like that was all he could manage. 

Steve pulled out and pushed back in, and listened to the heavy breaths Sergei was taking. There was a bead of sweat running down his spine. And seeing Sergei like this-- spread out in the yard, open and pliant, barely visible in the moonlight… well, it didn’t do a ton to Steve’s ego. He just felt vulnerable himself, like Sergei had reached past his ribs and gotten a hold on Steve’s heart for himself. 

So Steve fucked him, hard and slow, kissing random patches of Sergei’s skin, wherever he could reach them. His lips, his cheekbones, his neck. When he came, Sergei scratched lines down Steve’s back, fingers gone tense as they dug into Steve’s flesh. Steve brought a hand up and wiped the tears off his face. Sergei turned and kissed the inside of Steve wrist, delicate over the thin skin there, and any stamina Steve had left was gone just like that.

He pulled out, which ripped a disgusted groan out of Sergei, and Steve stood up on his knees. He jerked himself, panting and staring Sergei in the eye, until he couldn’t handle it and tumbled over the edge too. He came across Sergei’s stomach, adding to the mess that was already there, and collapsed over him.

Sergei just laughed a little and wrapped his arms over Steve’s shoulders, holding onto him tightly. 

The night was dark, and it was cool enough now at night that Steve started to shiver. Steve’s ears were ringing and didn’t hear what exactly Sergei murmured to him. Sergei rubbed his palms over Steve’s ribs, for God knows how long, until he was sitting them up again and coaxing Steve upright and back into the house. 

Steve was fucking exhausted, and maybe drunk still, because the room was spinning when Sergei laid him out on a bed and wiped off their stomachs with a wet towel before their mess dried any more. He felt it when Sergei was gone, and when he came back again. The mattress dipped under his weight and he groaned, fell face first into the pillows beside Steve.  


* * *

  
They weren’t even doing anything. Steve had taken a quick nap outside in the pool chairs, basking in the sunlight, and when he woke up Sergei was beside him with a book. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses, thick-framed and with dark lenses. Steve stretched out and felt it when his spine popped. Sergei chucked a bottle of sunscreen at him. 

“Don’t burn.” he said nonchalantly as he turned the page of his book. 

“I’m not gonna get burnt.”

“Right, because I give you sun block. You’re welcome.” 

Steve smiled and slathered some of the lotion over his forearms, like the potential burning damage probably hadn’t already been done by now. Steve closed his eyes and settled back down. 

Sergei had taken Steve along on his run that morning and Steve could still feel where he tripped over a pothole and cracked the side of his ankle a bit on the cement. He figured it would heal up before training camp started next week, but he still was a little worried. 

“Feds?” He called out. He heard Sergei turn another page.

“What?”

“Summer’s almost over.” Steve said.

“Yes, it is.” Sergei replied calmly. “Hockey, soon.”

“We probably shouldn’t tell the boys on the team when the season starts up.” Steve was thinking about his promise to Mr. Ilitch, that he and Sergei wouldn’t be for real. So, like, that turned out to be a fucking lie, but they didn’t need to go shouting it from the rooftops or anything.

“Right.” 

Steve opened his eyes and rolled his head sideways to look at Sergei. Sergei looked back at Steve from behind his shades.

“I think I might be in love with you, though.” Steve said as casually as he could. No big deal.

Sergei’s face lifted, like he was considering that. Then he nodded.

“I think, me too. For you.” And then he went back to his book.

“Great.” Steve couldn’t help the smile that plastered itself on his face. “This is great.” 

Sergei smiled lightly and lifted his book up closer to his face, like he was trying to hide behind it a bit. “Is just alright.” 

Steve swung a hand out and slapped Sergei in the arm. “Hey, c’mon, you have to say it too.”

Sergei made a disinterested noise. 

“Sergei… ”

“Stevie.”

“Sergei, come on.” Steve knew he was basically pouting but couldn’t stop it.

Sergei pushed his sunglasses up to his forehead. They held his hair back, a little bit, and he looked over at Steve with a grin. “I love you too, I can finish chapter now?”  


* * *

  
To anyone who hadn’t spent practically every second of the summer with him, Sergei looked pretty normal and relaxed when he and Steve had walked into training camp. Excited, even. But Steve could tell he was a little bit nervous, at least. He kept twisting his wedding ring around on his finger so he had something to do with his hands. 

As soon as Steve set foot in the familiar back hallways of the Joe, Bryan was there, grabbing his sleeve and asking to talk about the schedule and discuss expectations for this season. Sergei watched with huge eyes as Bryan pulled Steve away from him. Steve, in a moment of quick decision making, saw Shawn Burr chatting with Gerard Gallant. Steve pulled away from Bryan for a second, and jogged back to where Sergei was standing. 

Sergei looked at Steve with wide eyes. 

“I’ve got to deal with some things.” Steve explained, and pointed over to Shawn and Gerard. “Stick with them, they’ll take care of you. Shawn and Gerard.” 

Sergei’s eyes followed where Steve’s finger was pointing. Steve called the boys over. They both had big dopey smiles on their faces, happy to catch up after the summer break. Steve cut their introductions short.

“This is Sergei. He’s new so be nice. I gotta run off with the coach for a while, so keep him out of trouble for me.” 

“Yessir, Stevie.” Gerard said with a goofy grin and a two-fingered salute. Shawn slung an arm over Sergei’s shoulders and began walking him in the direction of the locker room. Gerard ran to catch up with them. Steve watched them walk off for a second before running back to Bryan’s side.

Coach had finally let him go with about fifteen minutes to get dressed before training camp was to begin in full, with the boys dressed and ready to start skating. 

Steve made it into the locker room and made directly for his stall, where all of his gear was set up and waiting for him. He was halfway through lacing his skates, carefully and tier-by-tier, when he heard Sergei’s voice raised above the chatter of the room. 

“No, love. Love! I need love!”

Steve looked up. Sergei was standing, decked out in scarlett, faced in towards Shawn’s stall where he was sitting. A bright white ninety-one was emblazoned across his back, and Steve’s heart jumped. Shawn made a sympathetic face while Sergei was pointing to his left hand. 

“What, did you have to leave your girl behind in Russia? That sucks, buddy, we all need love.” Shawn replied. 

Okay, actually Stevie couldn’t handle this-- “Shawn!” 

Shawn and Sergei both turned their heads when Steve shouted. He tied the knot tight on his skate without looking down at it. “He needs some _gloves_!” 

Steve watched as Sergei’s face lit up and Shawn mouthed _ Ohh, shit._ Shawn stood up, grabbed Sergei, and dragged him off to go find the equipment manager. Steve went back to tying his other skate.  


* * *

  
Steve had only barely seen what happened with Shawn in the locker room. It wasn’t catastrophic, in his opinion, and Sergei had played it off well, but it apparently rattled him enough that he stopped wearing his wedding band. 

He hadn’t really noticed at first, but then one morning he looked at Sergei’s left hand curled around his tea, and his ring wasn't there. It was gone. Disappeared, like a magic trick. Like the air that had just been in Steve’s chest. 

Sergei was tired, rubbing at his left eye and carrying his tea in the other hand, like everything was normal and fine. 

“I have a sleepy head today.” He complained and sat down at the table. Steve swallowed around nothing. 

“Feds?” He dared to ask. 

Sergei looked over at Steve, let out a quiet noise, a _hm?_ that hung in the air.

“What, um-- where did your ring go?”

Sergei blinked a few times, confused. “What do you mean?”

Steve lifted up his own hand and he finally figured out that, yeah, his ring could catch the sunlight like Sergei’s did sometimes. He looked away from it and back to Sergei’s face. His eyebrows had lifted up in a funny way, like he couldn’t believe what Steve was suggesting. 

He pushed a hand past the first couple of undone buttons on his shirt and pulled out the gold chain he usually wore. His wedding band was looped safely through the chain. When he left it drop, the ring was low enough that it bounced against Sergei’s sternum, just out of sight if it were below his shirt collar. 

“Ring did not go anywhere, Stepka.” He smiled. 

“Oh.”

“Just did not want the boys to think wrong idea, like Shawn. Too much drama.”

“… Oh.” Okay, so this had not been Steve’s most brilliant moment, but it was fine. Steve kind of liked seeing the ring hanging over Sergei’s heart, now that he knew Sergei hadn’t thrown it out or dropped it or lost it somewhere.

Sergei stood up a bit in his chair and leaned over the table to drop a kiss on Steve’s cheek. Steve couldn’t rip his eyes away from the way the ring dangled on the chain in front of the open triangle of Sergei’s shirt, or the way that it consequently showed off the strip of skin over Sergei’s chest.

“We have to get to the rink soon.” Steve said, breathless, as Sergei moved down to kiss at Steve’s neck.

“Sergei, I’m serious.” He warned. “We don’t have time for this.” 

Sergei bit at the soft skin behind Steve’s ear, and then pulled away and patted Steve on the cheek, twice. 

“Better go get ready, Captain.” He called out while walking away. Steve listened when Sergei’s steps marched up the stairs. 

Steve let his head drop to the table with a groan. He closed his eyes and drafted a quick pros and cons list about pinning Sergei up against a wall until he came in Steve’s fist, as fast as possible, before they left for work. 

He shuffled his socks aggressively against the tiled floor, and made a decision. He left his mug of tea on the table and leapt up to run after Sergei.

**Author's Note:**

> #retire91  



End file.
